Turkey requests 45,000 body bags

Turkey has requested help in obtaining 45,000 body bags after last week's catastrophic earthquake, a senior United Nations disaster relief official said today as heavy rain complicated efforts to clear debris and rescue any more survivors.

Turkish and Israeli rescuers did pull a small boy alive from the rubble in the town of Cinarcik, near Golcuk, one of the hardest hit cities in a swathe of destruction that has engulfed northwest Turkey.

"A Turkish team discovered him and they screamed to us to come and help," Noam Amit told Israel Radio. He was flown by helicopter to Istanbul, Turkey's Anatolian news agency said. The boy's name and the whereabouts of his family were not known.

Rescuers say small children stand the best chance of survival, needing less air, water and space than adults. Relief teams turned their attention to distributing food and setting up tents for some 200,000 earthquake survivors as signs of life diminished under the thousands of crumpled buildings.

As the confirmed death toll edged up to 12,148 six days after the quake, exhausted rescue teams dug on, although several have already pulled out. Overnight rain made conditions even more miserable for those left homeless by the country's worst quake in 60 years.

In making a request for help in getting 45,000 body bags, Turkish authorities are expecting the worst. Sergio Piazzi, head of the European desk at the UN office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told a news briefing that the request had been received from Ankara yesterday night. Last Friday, Mr Piazzi said Turkish authorities feared the death toll in the quake could reach 40,000. The body bag request appears to indicate that they now believed the final figure could go higher.

As parliament met today to discuss relief efforts, the government continued to come under heavy fire for its response to the disaster. Newspapers called for the resignation of Health Minister Osman Durmus, who was quoted as saying all the disaster region's health needs had been met and that there was no need for foreign medical teams.

"Enough, Shut Up and Go," the Radikal daily blared in a banner headline, calling the nationalist minister "insensitive, ignorant and racist." Mr Durmus defended himself, saying the injured were being cared for without the help of US hospital ships, expected to arrive soon.

"At the moment we don't have any patients suitable for the 2,000 bed, 200-doctor floating hospital," he said. "There is no infection now, but the risk is there," he added.

Many on the cities in the northwest have become vast morgues amid fears of infectious diseases, where survivors are coping without running water, toilets or electricity. Erik Noji of the World Health Organisation played down the chances of an epidemic and said truckloads of fresh water had been sent to the seven provinces declared disaster zones. "The correct response is the provision of clean water," he said. "And there is plenty of clean water there."

Mr Noji said there had been no reports of cholera or dysentery and only isolated cases of diarrhoea. Security measures were also stepped up, although there have been few reports of looting since the quake.